“Awright, well, here’s the thing. It’s only a raw deal if we give up now. I mean, that would be a total bummer. ’Cause then we ran away and ticked off our parents for nothing. Wasn’t it you who had the motto about every day being full of ideas or something? Y’know, for Mrs. Murray? So let’s come up with an idea. Come on!”
I turn my hot, filthy self to face Paul. “You remember my motto?”
“Well, um, sort of. I mean, I think so. I remember it was a good one. We all thought so.” Paul swallows a big noticeable lump in his throat. “Remind me what it was, exactly?”
“Every good day starts with an idea,” I say.
And right as I say that, I have one.
We figure out that you can pretty much go straight across the city of Tallahassee on the Azalea Route, which for some reason makes me feel better, since it sounds so sweet and mild. And you can do the whole thing for $1.25, which Paul calls a worthy investment for “a couple of fugitives about to attempt a break-in at the local hospital.”
He’s trying to make me a little less nervous by making me laugh. What we’re actually gonna attempt, though, is a breakout not a break-in. We’re gonna go get my mama before my daddy gets us. At least that’s the idea.
So we’re standing here at the bus stop, sort of half-laughing about our plan, when this dog comes running toward us, barking up a storm, like it’s his job to guard the place. But he’s big and goofy and floppy, sort of reddish with white paint splotches—a big goofy floppy dog, just like the kind I want—and he’s wearing a sweater! Which would be kind of funny anyway, but especially in Florida in the middle of summer, of all things.
He’s barking and barking, and Paul yells, “Hey!” I guess to scare the dog away, but Paul is clearly the one who’s scared. He backs up and presses himself into the corner of the little bus shelter and says “Hey” again, but quieter this time.
“Come ’ere, pup,” I say. “Come ’ere.” And then I do that clicking thing with my tongue that dogs love, and sure enough, he stops barking and turns away from Paul and toward me.
“Ivy, watch out,” says backed-into-the-corner Paul, even though the dog is now rubbing his head into my hands and practically purring.
“Paul, he’s wearing a sweater,” I say, and now I’m really actually laughing at the idea of a big goofy floppy dog in a sweater being dangerous.
And then I hear some guy yell, “Sammy! Sammy, come!” And Sammy turns on a dime and heads toward home. I give Paul a full-on grin as he steps out of the corner of the shelter, and when the bus rolls up, I hop up the steps feeling better than I’ve felt in a couple of days, ’cause there is just nothing like a dog. I look back at Paul, and he’s looking back himself, probably making sure that Sammy really did go home.
Tallahassee Memorial sits like a huge, white cube at the corner of Miccosukee and Centerville Roads. It is nothing like the pretty little hospital in Loomer, with a lawn that’s lined with flowerbeds and statues of children. This hospital does not seem like a nice place to get well, is what I mean, which makes me even readier than I was before to go on up there and get my mama out.
There’s a couple of big, heavy glass doors to get into the lobby. I lead the way, and Paul follows. The big clock on the wall reads ten forty-five. No wonder I’m starving, since all I’ve had today is a soda, and not much last night either. And, also, looking at the clock makes me wonder how soon Daddy’ll be here. Is he driving or flying? Or is he taking the bus, like we did? What I wish is that he’d decided to walk his way to Florida so we could have a teeny bit more time to work this whole thing out.
A woman sits at an information desk in the lobby, and I head straight for her. Paul splits off and walks into the gift shop that’s lined with balloons and stiff stuffed animals. Stiff stuffed animals are more for display than something a person would really want to cuddle. When I was seven, I won one—a stiff bunny—in a ball toss at the Loomer County Fair. According to the way Mama and Daddy tell it, I was so disappointed that I gave the bunny back to the man at the booth and said, “Shame on you.” I still get teased about it, but honestly, nobody on God’s green earth deserves a stiff stuffed animal, least of all the sick folks in a hospital.
“How may I help you today?” asks the woman at the desk. She wears green scrubs, and her badge says, My name is Constance. She looks like she’s Mama’s age. She actually looks kind of like Mama, with her long, pretty neck and soft cheeks and glossy hair pulled back like that. Only this lady’s life is probably normal as nails. She’s here volunteering while her daughter goes to summer camp or something, and probably their dinner’s already in the slow cooker at home.
“Can I have the room number for Mrs. Diana Green, please?” My heart flutters as Constance taps away at the computer. I half-expect her to tell me that Mama’s gone, but she doesn’t.
She just says, “Head on up to three north, doll. That’s for cardiac care. Room 312. The nurses up there will show you the way.”
“Third floor it is.” Paul’s voice startles me. I didn’t realize he’d stepped back beside me. He slips a banana and a bag of pretzels into my hand as we head for the elevator. “C’mon, Ivy Blank Green. Let’s go get your mama,” he says. And I have to admit, I don’t mind my lonely little nickname so much when Paul says it.
On the third floor when we ask for directions, a nurse called Nan says, “Oh, I can take you to Mrs. Green.” And the next thing you know, here we are, standing in front of room 312. I can see, through the open door, a pair of feet on the bed, in fuzzy socks. Mama’s feet, I can tell already.
Chapter Sixteen
Knock, knock, Mrs. Green,” says Nan. “I’ve got visitors for you!” She moves through the doorway toward the fuzzy feet, and I follow, my own breath noisy in my ears. Paul is right behind me—I can hear his breath too, slower and softer than my own. And then there she is, my mama, lying stock-still upon the bed, with her eyes closed. She’s dressed in a lavender jogging suit and the fuzzy socks, and there’s a thin blanket partway covering her belly and chest. She looks smaller than usual, and pale, and I can’t help myself, not for one second longer. I push past Nan and rush up against the side of the bed.
“Mama!” I say. “Mama, it’s me,” and before the words are even fully out of my mouth, Mama opens her eyes and turns her head toward me.
“Oh, Ivy,” she says, in her same old Mama voice that I know and love. “Oh, baby doll.”
She looks me straight in the eye, and it’s almost too much for me to bear. I sort of sit-fall into the chair by the head of the bed, and Mama reaches out for me, just as Paul pats one hand very softly on my shoulder from behind. My head falls forward, and I hear Nan scootch herself out of the room, which is best, because if I completely lose it, it won’t be in public (though having Paul here is bad enough).
But it turns out I don’t cry. I just sit there with my head down, and I breathe and shake. I don’t know if I’m upset or relieved or tired or scared. I don’t know what I am besides all wrung out, and maybe it doesn’t even matter. It’s just been weeks and weeks since I’ve seen my mama, is all.
So I breathe and shake, and Mama holds on to me and whispers, “Ivy, Ivy,” over and over again.
“Mama,” I finally say, lifting my head up to look at her, “where have you been and what on earth is the matter with you?” I push myself back up to sitting a bit. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
I don’t say, “And here’s Paul. We ran away from home and took a bus all the way to Florida and we’ve come to break you out,” because that might rush things a tidge. So Paul just stands behind me quietly without an introduction. Waiting. He’s had to do a lot of that today.
“Oh, Ivy,” Mama says again. And then she says, “It is a long story, baby. I am so, so sorry. About everything. I’m fine, though, now. I promise you I am. I needed to get my blood pressure under control. I was having fainting spells. I thought they were du
e to all my upset over that scoundrel of a man I was fool enough to follow down here, but really it was just my blood pressure acting up. I forgot my medicines at home.” She pulls herself up onto her elbow as she talks, which makes her look more like her normal self than she did lying flat on her back. “That scoundrel of a man” is Hallelujah Dave, I guess, and it doesn’t sound like she’s too fond of him anymore. Which seems like a minor miracle, if you ask me.
I hurry to pull Mama’s bottles of pills out of my backpack and set them on the bed beside her. “Here. I brought them to you. But I guess I’m a little late.”
Mama looks down at the pills, and she doesn’t look back up at me. She starts talking in this really low, slow way. “Oh, Ivy. Oh, you dear, dear heart. It doesn’t matter, baby. I got what I needed right here. I’m really perfectly healthy now. I think I’m only still in the hospital because I haven’t gotten up the courage to come on home, so help me heavenly Father, and I had nowhere else to go.”
Without turning her head to look up at me, she reaches to touch the gold cross at her neck, the one Daddy gave her for their tenth anniversary when she passed her old one down to me. They’re nearly the same, only this one’s real gold, through and through.
“All your life I’ve tried to set a good example for you, baby.” She holds on to the cross as she talks. “And now I’m just so embarrassed, really too embarrassed to make my way back to y’all. I failed you, and I failed your daddy, too. I—” She stops suddenly and leans up higher and looks around. Her eyes are wide and worried. They flutter, flutter, flutter, and finally find me again. “Ivy, where is your daddy?”
And I know this sounds sillier than a girl my age has any right to be, but I wasn’t expecting that question. It catches me straight up, and my breath hooks a little in my chest.
“He is, um . . . well . . . Daddy isn’t here. He didn’t come.”
Mama pops all the way up now, and she swings her legs over the side of the bed so she’s facing me and looking very much like my mama again.
“What do you mean he didn’t come? Where is he and how did you get here, Ivy Green?”
My breath hooks again, and I truly can’t tell if anything’s going to come out of my mouth when I open it. “On the bus,” I say. And that’s it. That’s all I say. That’s all that comes out.
“The bus? You came to Florida on the bus? Alone, or with Daddy?”
“No, ma’am. She didn’t come alone. She came with me.” Paul’s voice, clear and strong, comes from behind me. Thank goodness.
I squeeze my hands onto my knees, to remind myself and make absolutely certain that I am here, sitting solidly in this chair instead of floating. And then I turn my head slowly to look up at Paul.
“She came with you?” asks Mama. “What in heaven’s name? You’re Paul Dobbs, isn’t that right?” Mama sounds like she’s just this very moment noticed Paul standing in the room with us, which seems, no offense, kind of clueless.
“Yes, ma’am,” says Paul.
“Okay, well. Mercy. And aren’t you lucky to be right smack dab in the middle of this family drama,” Mama says. And then she actually laughs a little, in a tired sort of way.
“Mama, I wanted to find you,” I say, turning back toward her and reaching out to hold her hand again. “And Paul was willing to help. It’s not that far on the bus, honestly, and here we are. We found you, and you’re okay. So. That’s that.”
Only, that isn’t that. Not at all. Because we’re still trapped in a hospital room in the panhandle of Florida, and Daddy’s on his way to rescue us right now. If he finds us here, I’m no better than Mama, needing to be hauled home, and that is not how I’m going to finish this whole thing. I’m gonna succeed. I’m gonna get it right. Mama’s flopped back on the bed again, only her legs are still hanging over the side, so everything looks kind of dislocated. And she shuts her eyes in a headachy grimace. It looks like we’re a long way from right.
“Mama, really,” I say. “We’re gonna go home now and this’ll all be over. Daddy’s gonna be glad to have us back!” I think about Paul saying the very same thing to me, and I cannot tell you how much and deeply I hope that it’s true.
“This is all my fault, Ivy. You don’t need to make excuses. My twelve-year-old daughter took a bus to Florida, alone. Well, not quite alone, Paul, but you know what I mean. All on account of me. Good God in heaven, what hath I wrought?”
Which is a Bibley way of saying “What have I done?”
There’s a little three-knock rap on the door, and I have never been so relieved to be interrupted in all my life. Another nurse—not Nan—comes in. She is towering tall and her eyes are very bright. “I am sorry to interrupt this happy powwow,” she says, “but I need to grab your vitals, Ms. Green.”
“Kids, this is Raquel,” says Mama, and she sticks out her arm for the blood pressure cuff without being asked. I realize as I watch her that Mama’s got a whole little life going on down here. Hallelujah Dave and The Great Good Bible Church. Nan and Raquel. Blood pressure cuffs and hospital food. A whole little life I know nothing about at all. She’s been gone that long.
Raquel chitchats with us while she takes Mama’s blood pressure and pulse and temperature, makes notes on a chart at the head of the bed, and moves over to crank open the window a bit.
“Alrighty, friends,” she says. “I’ll leave you to it. And I don’t see why you can’t head home soon, m’dear,” she says to Mama. “You’re doing very well, and now your family’s here. We’ll see if we can get the doctor to clear you tomorrow morning.”
Which, with Daddy hot on our trail, is not soon enough for us. And it doesn’t take much to convince Mama that we owe it to everyone to hustle up and head on home.
When we sneak out of the hospital forty-five minutes later, Mama leaves a note that reads:
To Whom It May Concern—
I’m sorry I had to check out rather suddenly. Thank you for the fine care you’ve given me. I’m feeling much better. Here is my home address in Loomer, Texas, in case you need that. God bless you and keep you in his care.
Diana Green, patient
2203 Magpie Lane
Loomer, TX 78972
That’s the thing about Mama. She can sometimes be kind of freakily polite. I mean, who on God’s green earth leaves a thank-you note and a forwarding address when they’re running away?
I wish she would’ve done that when she ran away from us.
The plan is this:
We sneak Mama from the hospital.
We rent a car.
We call Daddy and Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs from the car to tell them we’re okay.
We start driving west toward Texas.
Pretty simple.
But the part about the phone calls? That part is Mama’s idea. It was all I could do to stop her from calling Daddy right then and there in the hospital. I reminded her that we were kind of trying to be quick about getting out of there and getting home. I didn’t tell her that if we waited much longer, Daddy was gonna do the getting home for us. I know Daddy’s worried, I do. And he’s probably halfway to Florida already. But I don’t want to call. Neither does Paul. We were just getting used to keeping to ourselves, if you know what I mean. “Flying under the radar,” Paul calls it. And if I’m gonna be more than an idea girl, I need to stay under the radar and finish what we started.
But I can’t see a way around making the calls eventually. Mama is worried Daddy may never forgive her. Those are the exact words she used, and she wants to start making things right as quick as she can. Which makes me worry all over again that Hallelujah Dave might have been some sort of boyfriend to Mama. A bad boyfriend, but still . . . Daddy can’t be any too thrilled about that.
“So here’s how I see things,” says Mama standing at the rental car counter waiting for the agent to find us a car. “We’ll start driving this afternoon, but we won’t make
it all the way home tonight. With God as my witness, I plan to deliver you both to Loomer in one solid piece, not a scratch on you. Falling asleep at the wheel won’t do at all.”
“Yep. Understood, Mrs. Green,” says Paul. He stands right beside Mama, holding her suitcase upright. There’s something about the way it’s packed that makes it want to tip over, so Mama’s given Paul the job of keeping it propped up.
“Safe and sound, that’s what I promise you both. But that means we’ll need to stop for the night somewhere along the way. At least we can get a motel room. Anything should be better than that bus y’all rode down on, right?” She taps her credit card against the counter as she talks, like she’s nervous. Maybe because she and Daddy try to save it for emergencies, so I guess this is kind of an emergency.
“Yep,” says Paul again, keeping up our end of the conversation as I stand, half-asleep, right behind him. I feel like that bus we rode down on is catching up with me. And the jail. And the hospital. The whole thing is catching up with me, really. I yawn with my eyes closed.
“I’ve got a nice Chevy Malibu for you,” says the agent lady to Mama, and as Mama turns her attention to the paperwork, that’s when it hits me. Hard.
I’ve been so concerned with finding Mama and keeping ahead of Daddy that I’m about to let us head straight home to Texas without so much as mentioning the space shuttle or Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Chapter Seventeen
I want to call Paul’s parents first, to put off talking to Daddy just a hair longer, but Mama says, “No, honey. It’s time. We need to let him know that we’re all okay, and that I’m well and good and responsible for you again. Now that I’m out of that hospital, I have the strength to do what’s right.”
She doesn’t ask me if I have the strength, so I’m guessing that doesn’t affect her decision one way or the other.
The Great Good Summer Page 10